As an agricultural planter row unit travels across fields with variable soil types, soil moisture, residue levels and topography, it is difficult to maintain constant seed depth and other parameters due to changing conditions which would ideally require varying the row unit down force pressure. For example, farming with higher residue levels also requires higher row unit down force levels as row cleaners, coulters and other attachments require applied force to keep them in the ground and at consistent depths.
At the same time, in many locations there are immoveable rocks or other obstructions at or below the soil surface which require the planter row unit to be able to quickly and freely (without undue increase in the row unit down force) rise up and over the obstruction freely and then quickly move back down, leaving a minimum amount of the row unplanted. All this must be accomplished at ground speeds of 6 mph or more. Today's planters typically include many individual row units, at times up to 120 ft wide, each of which may be encountering rocks etc. or have a need to float up or down independently.
Traditionally springs have been used to urge row units downward. Recently air bag systems have been used to overcome some of the drawbacks to air spring systems. Air systems provide a more uniform down force through the vertical range of travel, compared to springs, and are somewhat easier to adjust than springs. However due to the compressibility of air and the relatively large volumes required, changes in air pressure are very cumbersome and not adaptable to very fast change and response to in-cab controls on the go. Air bag systems typically have a very large cross-sectional area in relation to the hose feeding the air spring with pressure, which can provide a large multiplication of force and allow for relatively good isolation of one row unit relative to another. However, air bag systems typically do not allow for rapid change of the force being applied, because of the large volume of the air spring in relation to the cross section of the hose supplying the air.
Prior attempts to use devices such as combination spring/hydraulic shock absorbers do not provide ready adjustment on the go and tend to increase in force when rapidly striking a foreign object such as a rock requiring the row unit to quickly rise and come back down to resume planting. This increase in force levels can cause damage to the planter row unit components.
Some previous down-force systems use a spring and a hydraulic cylinder in series. In these systems the hydraulic cylinder does not directly control row unit down force, but rather is used to vary the amount of spring pressure applied to each unit.
Other systems use hydraulics with a central accumulator. However, with the accumulator separated from the force creating cylinder, pressure spikes can develop when hitting obstructions such as a rock at high speed since oil must be forced through hoses or tubes to the remotely located accumulator. This is especially problematic on planters having 50 or more row units.
As computers and GPS systems have allowed crop production to be managed in a location-specific way as an implement moves through the field, it has become necessary to achieve more rapid changes in the setting or adjustment of the implement. In the case of a planter row unit, it is also necessary to generate a large amount of force. Each individual planter row unit must be able to react to the soil it encounters independently of the other row units.
An air spring can allow for remote adjustment of the planter down pressure without stopping the forward motion of the implement, which is inefficient. Mechanical springs have historically required that the operator stop the implement, get out of the tractor, and make a manual adjustment. The slow rate at which an air spring system can be inflated or deflated means that even if a GPS system determines that a change needs to be made because of a programmed or sensed change in the local soil composition or conditions, by the time the pump can change the air pressure the implement has already moved too far forward of where the change needed to be made. This forces the average grid size in which active adjustments of the planter down pressure can be made to be quite large.